In the world of consumer devices, and particularly consumer electronics, there is an ever-present demand for improved appearance, improved functionality and improved aesthetics. Industrial design has become a highly skilled profession that focuses on fulfilling this need for enhanced consumer product appearance, functionality, and aesthetics.
One area that continually receives great attention for improvement is that of user interfaces, which generally govern how a user interacts with a device to, for example, initiate, adjust or otherwise control a function supported by the device. Various types of user interfaces include touchscreens (e.g., with image-based interface features visually presented to the user by a display such a liquid crystal display), voice-based interfaces, and tangible interfaces (e.g., with interface features such as buttons, knobs, sliders, switches, keyboards, etc.), gesture interfaces (e.g., with interface features such as a computer mouse or stylus), etc. Many consumer electronics devices such as “smart phones” incorporate touchscreens that obviate the need for are designed to be portable and easy to use, and as such they often do not include keyboards to minimize device size. However as consumer products continually become smaller yet capable of supporting more functions, it becomes increasingly difficult to provide a user interface that not only allows a user to interact with the device intuitively and easily, but that is also uncluttered in form and appearance and that does not undesirably damage the aesthetic appeal of the device.
Much of the aesthetic appeal of a consumer electronic device can quickly be compromised if there are too many tangible interface features, if too much of a display area is occupied by image-based interface features, or if certain interface features are not accessible without navigating through a series of instructions or screens. Tangible interface features typically remain visible to the user at all times, regardless of how often or how little they are used. This is not only displeasing from an aesthetic standpoint, but it can be an annoying distraction that interferes with handling and manipulation of the device. Over time, some tangible interface features can undesirably break, crack, get jammed, or even fall off of the device. Lastly, tangible interface features sometimes are not perfectly mated with the body of the device. Such an imperfect mating can enable liquids, dirt, and other debris to undesirably enter into the body of the device to potentially damage the device or at least degrade the aesthetic appearance of the device.